	Copyright

Home
Edward II
Edward II; Part 3

Edward II; Part 3

Time was the only thing needed for a fresh outbreak against the king to gather. His promises, indeed, were well enough. In 1322 he and the Despensers repealed the Ordinances, and declared that affairs of interest to the realm were to be treated in Parliament, "as hath heretofore been accustomed". But, as "heretofore accustomed", the feebleness of the king and the greediness of the Despensers soon supplied cause for a new plot. This time it was hatched in France, where it was safe. Roger Mortimer joined Queen Isabella, who had gone to France to pay homage. She brought over her son, and the conspirators removed to Hainault, the queen refusing to return to England, and openly discarding her marriage vows. In 1326 the plot was ripe. As soon as the conspirators landed, all that were discontented - and that was the greater part of England - joined them. The king meant to flee to Ireland, but dawdled aimlessly on the Welsh marches till he was captured with his friends, the Despensers. They were hanged; the king was deposed and imprisoned. Soon afterwards he was murdered in Berkeley Castle.

Thus the internal history of the reign is the familiar one of feudal rebellion; we have seen it over and over again - in Stephen's reign, in Henry II's, in John's, in Henry Ill's. It succeeded in the first and failed in the second, because one king was weak and the other vigorous; in the third and fourth instances it has a certain gloss cast over it by the presence of great men such as Stephen Langton and Simon de Montfort, and by the beginnings of English liberties in the Great Charter and the House of Commons. Edward II's catastrophe has nothing to redeem it} it is a sordid tale of selfish violence and family ambition. Yet, while the details are confusing, and the outcome seems to lead nowhither, there are one or two points which will become of importance later, and may therefore be noticed.

First, then, we observe the "Favourite". He is a man raised up by favour of the king from a more or less insignificant position, as a counterpoise to the power of the old noble families. This is true of Gaveston, and to a certain extent true of the Despensers. But it must also be noted that the "favourite" was also the king's chief agent in carrying on the government. Thus he was not only the recipient of favour, but the bestower of it also. To use a word of much more modern meaning, he was a sort of "minister"; yet he differed from a true minister in that he held his place solely by the king's favour. Some men can be placed unhesitatingly in one class, and some in the other. Buckingham, for example, was a "favourite"; Walpole was a "minister". The distinction is clear. Buckingham held his place by the king's favour, and Parliament could not, despite its efforts, turn him out, whereas Walpole depended for his place upon his majority in Parliament. Between these two men we may find others whose position is less clear; what precisely are we to call Strafford, Danby, or Marlborough? It is plain that they are not either completely independent of Parliament, nor completely dependent on it. But the point of interest in Edward II's day is that the old hereditary nobility, who naturally hated favourites as upstarts, and regarded the right of filling the king's great offices as belonging to themselves, strove to control these appointments. In 1309, and again in 1322, the name of Parliament was invoked, and an attempt made to limit the king's freedom of choice, but to no real purpose. The fact was that Parliament was still but a name, and had no effective power; it had ideas, but could not enforce them.

Edward II; Part 3

Chronology